


Her Second Son

by Tori_Scribbles



Series: Threefold [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Books Are A Way To Communicate, Books and Comics, Canon Compliant, Claudia Stilinski Feels, Gen, Good Parent Melissa McCall, Grief/Mourning, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Missing Scenes, Nightmares, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Stiles Stilinski Needs a Hug, Stilinski Family Feels, Survivor Guilt, Wow this got sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 09:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20094976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tori_Scribbles/pseuds/Tori_Scribbles
Summary: Prompt: Three times Melissa was like Stiles' mom.





	1. nightmares

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tasteofdreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tasteofdreams/gifts), [Tattered_Dreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tattered_Dreams/gifts).

> 1\. After Claudia's death, Stiles is staying at Scott's and has a nightmare  
2\. In the hospital after the Nogitsune, Stiles blames himself  
3\. When Noah is in the hospital in S5a, Melissa stays with him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pre series. after claudia dies.

Melissa woke with a start, wide awake and alert before she even had a chance to process the terrified screams and cries that echoed through her house. 

Next to her Raph stirred with a curse, but she was already half out of bed, telling him to go back to sleep. 

She shot down the hall and into the guest bedroom, Stiles’ bedroom, and all thoughts of going back to sleep left her mind as she turned on the light and watched her son’s best friend thrash about in the sheets, his eyes shut tightly as he cried. He looked so small and vulnerable all alone in such a big bed. 

She sat on the edge of his mattress. “Stiles, sweetheart, wake up. It’s just a dream. You’re okay,” she murmured, trying to gently pull him from whatever horror he was trapped in. The second her hand came to rest on his arm, he shot upright, his eyes snapped open with panic as he came back to reality. “Hey, hey, hey. There you go. You’re safe now, you’re okay. It was just a dream.” 

Stiles looked around at her, his eyes wide, as though he was seeing her for the first time. He stared at her for a second as his brain caught up with him before his face scrunched up and he burst into tears.

“Oh, honey,” she breathed, shifting further on to the bed, so her back was up against the headboard and she could comfortably gather him into her lap, rubbing soothing circles on his back. “There we go, let it all out. You’re okay. You wanna tell me what you were dreaming about?”

“The hospital,” Stiles choked out between sobs and Melissa sighed, pressing her face into his hair. So his mom, or maybe his dad drinking. “He was so angry.” 

Melissa’s heart clenched painfully. She remembered sitting in the waiting room, holding this inconsolable boy while his father raged at doctors that he should’ve been called, somebody should’ve told him his wife was dying. She remembered how he’d turned around, his eyes finding Stiles and he just... broke and nobody had been able to pick up the pieces since.

“It’s not fair,” Stiles cried and Melissa tried to stop her own tears from falling. She was an adult when both of her parents died and she lost them both at once to a car wreck. She didn’t have to watch them slowly slip away for months, and she didn’t have to spend months watching the other one fall apart. She couldn’t imagine going through that pain as a child.

“I know,” she whispered. “I know, Sweetheart. It’s really not.” 

She held him tightly as he cried and sobbed, rocking him back and forth until he had no more tears to cry.

“Hey, there,” she said softly, looking down at him, “are you back with me?”

She got a sniffle in response.

“Alright, how about I go downstairs and make us some hot chocolates with my secret recipe and you pick out a book for us to read,” she said, poking his tummy, smiling slightly as he squirmed but she could tell how upset he was because he didn’t protest a bedtime story, he just nodded, sliding out of her arms to where his books were scattered across the floor.

He wasn’t officially living with them, but every time he came over he seemed to bring more and more books and comics, and he never took them home again.

“I’ll be right back, alright? Make sure you pick us a good one,” she said, moving towards the door, but Stiles was already laying out several.

She stepped out into the hall, sticking her head around Scott’s door to make sure Stiles’ cries hadn’t woken him but he was sprawled out diagonally across his bed, sheets tangled up in his legs. She smiled slightly before quietly backing out of his room and down the stairs to make drinks.

She leant back against the counter while waiting for the milk to heat up, worrying at the edge of her thumbnail with her teeth.

It had been weeks since Claudia’s death, her funeral had passed and still, Noah still showed more interest in the next bottle of beer than he did his son. She understood that it had to be hard, him and Claudia were the closest thing to soulmates that Melissa had ever seen. They were always perfectly in sync, the type of couple that would finish each other's sentences and be gazing lovingly at each other every chance they could get. Her and Stiles were Noah’s world and she got so sick, so quickly. They’d barely had a chance to wrap their heads around the diagnosis before she had to be permanently hospitalized and it wasn’t long after that that she was gone altogether.

It left Noah alone, balancing a full-time job and his new role as a single parent along with his grief and it pained Melissa that the first thing in that situation to break was his relationship with Stiles. Because right now, what Stiles needed most was his father.

The microwave beeped loudly in the silence of the house and she startled, hastily drying her eyes before turning to finish the drinks.

“You found one?” she asked as she stepped back into the room, carefully setting the two mugs on the nightstand. Stiles rose up from his place on the floor, climbing back on the bed, a thick, old looking book that Melissa recognised well in his hands.

“This one,” he said, flipping the book open to a particular page and she tried not to frown.

“Are you sure, Sweetheart?” she asked. 

It was an old book that had been passed down through Claudia’s family, full of old Polish fairy tales, on one page it was written in English and the opposite page had the English translations. The book had sat on Claudia’s nightstand in the hospital, and whenever she was well enough she would read them to Stiles and if she wasn’t well enough, then Stiles or Noah would read them to her.

“This was her favourite,” he said, holding the book out to her and Melissa nodded, unable to refuse.

She climbed back into bed, letting him settle down against her as she tucked them both in, holding the book carefully out of the way, she passed his hot chocolate across to him.

“Alright, let’s see,” she said, looking down at the worn pages, she cleared her throat. “The Whirlwind, by A. J. Glinski. In a far-off country, beyond the sea and the mountains, there lived a king and a queen, with a beautiful daughter who was called Princess Ladna…” 

-oOo-

Melissa woke the next morning with a heavy weight against her chest and an uncomfortable crick in her neck. She opened her eyes and smiled softly at the sight of Stiles curled up against her side.

They’d finished the story last night and Melissa had promised to stay with him until he’d fallen asleep, but she must have drifted off herself sometime after that. 

She glanced across at the alarm clock, although daylight was breaking through the curtains, it was still early. She had a while yet before she had to start getting the boys up for school, that is if Stiles was even going to school today, she’d decide that one after he woke up.

She brushed a gentle hand through his short hair, before sliding out from under him, careful not to disturb him. He looked so peaceful asleep like this, like he was just an ordinary kid who didn’t have to suffer.

Melissa sighed, picking up the two empty mugs and heading downstairs, moving into the kitchen she set the mugs in the sink and reached for the landline, dialling the number before she could talk herself out of it.

_ “Hello?”  _

She sighed again, Noah’s voice was thick, groggy and clearly hungover.

“Noah, it’s Melissa,” she said, her voice hard, “we need to talk about Stiles.” 

And if two days later Stiles moved back in with his dad and Noah layed off the alcohol for a while, neither he nor Melissa mentioned it again.


	2. guilt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after the nogitsune. post 3b, pre 4.

Melissa stood in the quiet hospital corridor, flicking through Stiles’ chart. She had generally been kept away from his case, she was too personally involved to treat him with a clear mind, but now that she was working the night shift, she could check in on him.

His body was responding better now that he was back on his Adderall, the sudden, untreated, withdrawal from that had been a massive shock on his body. The malnutrition and severe dehydration hadn’t helped much either.

The cover story was vast and complicated. On paper, they were putting Stiles’ disappearance and lack of personal care down to delayed PTSD from his mother's death, which is why his symptoms mirrored hers. The fact that someone with Stiles’ face had torn the hospital apart and murdered several people was a little more complicated. Argent had discreetly doctored some security footage and Noah backdated an APB for someone matching that person's description, they’d also told people that Stiles was in the hospital that day for tests so if they’d seen him mixed up with the suspect, he must have been trying to getaway.

It had helped that Stiles had barely said a word to anyone in the last few days, so he wasn’t exactly going around trying to take the blame.

She slid his chart back in its box, and let herself into his room. He was still connected to a couple of drips and he was due a sedative soon, as it was the only way for him to sleep through the night without someone threatening to refer him back to Eichen.

Stiles was laying down, so still and calm that for a second Melissa thought he’d managed to get some sleep but as she stepped closer, she could see the way his head was angled towards the window, his eyes open and unseeing.

“Stiles,” she said, careful to keep her voice soft but Stiles flinched as though she’d shouted in his face. “How’re you feeling, honey? Can I get you anything?”

Stiles looked at her with a slight frown, like he’d hadn’t heard her properly and was trying to make the words make sense in his mind. After a moment he shook his head. “I’m fine,” he lied.

She nodded anyway. “Finally managed to convince your dad to go home, huh?” she said casually as she collected up his barely touched tray from dinner. 

Stiles nodded.

“I saw Scott as he was leaving, he’s going to come back after school tomorrow,” she said, filling the silence like this was an everyday thing. “And Derek was here judging by that book.” She looked down at the book on the nightstand. The cover was a little battered and the spine was creased like it had been read a hundred times before. It was an old copy of Eden by Andrea Kleine and tucked underneath was a Jessica Jones comic with the name  _ Erica Reyes  _ written neatly across the top in pencil.

Derek struck Melissa as somebody who didn’t talk much about his emotions and probably didn’t press people to talk about theirs, instead, he spoke to them in other ways. With silent assurances that he understood what they were going through and that he was there should they need him. He’d spent more than one day sat in this very room, reading a book while Stiles had stared absently out of the window, at one point Stiles had screamed at him and Derek had let him say his piece, answered softly but still didn’t go anywhere. Melissa didn’t know much about his past, aside from what everybody knew about his family, but she didn’t need to know all of the details to know that he carried a lot with him.

She looked to Stiles again who had gone back to staring blankly out of the window, despite the fact that all you could see out of it was the cloudy night's sky, illuminated by the moon.

Melissa frowned but decided to not try and push him anymore tonight. She went to pick up his dinner tray but hesitated as his lips twitched as if he’d gone to say something and then changed his mind.

“Will- will you apologise to the nurse who bought me that please?” he asked, his voice quiet, still not looking away from the window. 

“What for, Sweetheart?” she said with a frown, she didn’t even know who’d bought around dinner tonight, it was strange for a nurse to do it.

“I think I scared her,” Stiles said, his brow creasing as he thought about it. “She was here the night I was looking for you with the Oni.” 

Melissa set the tray back down. “Stiles, that wasn’t you,” she said, her voice soft but firm. They’d all agreed not to push him to talk, but that didn’t mean they had to listen to him blame himself either. When Stiles pulled a disagreeing face, she sighed. “Stiles, look at me, honey. What that thing did to you, what it  _ made you  _ do. You didn’t get a choice. I know you had to watch it all and remember it. But listen to me when I say  _ it’s not your fault.”  _

Stiles’ eyes watered, and several emotions crossed his face very quickly. HIs obs machine beeped loudly as he got worked up and Melissa was moving towards him before she could stop herself, drawing him into her arms like she had done a thousand times before as his emotions got the better of him and he sobbed.

“It was me though,” he choked out. “I remember it all. I remember _enjoying_ it.” 

Melissa sighed softly, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. She really wasn’t equipped to talk him through the mentality that came from being possessed by an ancient fox spirit and she made a mental note to ask Scott or Derek, whoever she saw first, about a supernatural therapist.

“It was your body, but it wasn’t you. It wasn’t your mind,” she murmured and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t even imagine what it felt like, to see your hands do something so twisted but not be able to stop them. 

“I let it into my head. I stopped fighting it at Eichen and now people are dead,” he said. “Allison’s dead.” 

All Melissa could do was just hold him tighter. “It wasn’t your fault.” 


	3. fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> missing scene from after Noah's surgery in 5a.

Melissa stepped into Noah’s room, taking a second to let her eyes drift over his pulse and blood pressure that flashed on the screen. 

“How is he?” she asked and Stiles shrugged slightly, rubbing a hand across his tired eyes.

“He woke up for a minute,” he said, leaning into her side almost unconsciously as she rested her hands on his shoulders. “But he’s out again.” 

“Good. His body needs to recover,” she said. “His obs are getting stronger though. God, you Stilinski men sure know how to scare us.” She tried to make her tone light but her voice cracked at the end. She really did think they were going to lose him for a minute there.

“How long does he have to stay here?” Stiles asked, not taking his eyes off his dad’s sleeping face.

“Providing there’s no more complications or infection, then maybe two days,” she said. He nodded.

“I uh- when I was a kid, like twelve, some drunk guy attacked him and it was the first time I remember his job putting him in hospital,” Stiles said.

“I remember,” Melissa said, “He had a fractured cheekbone and a dislocated finger. You wouldn’t leave his bedside. You slept on my lap in one of these uncomfortable chairs all night. I don’t think my back ever recovered.” 

Stiles gave a slight laugh and the sound made Melissa smile. “When we went home, I had nightmares for weeks,” he confessed. “Dad sat me down one day and told me that I was more important than his job, and if I couldn’t handle him going back to work then he wouldn’t. I keep wondering what he’d be doing now if I’d have asked him to not go back.” 

Melissa rubbed his shoulders soothingly as she considered it. “He’d have not known what to do with himself for a while that’s for sure.” She looked at Noah, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest with every breath. “But he would have found some way to keep helping people and he’d have probably have gotten himself into more trouble doing it. You Stilinski’s are good at that.” 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, with an affronted noise.

Melissa laughed. “Oh yeah? I remember when you and Scott were about thirteen and you had gone off into the preserve for… I don’t even know what. He’d had an asthma attack and when you went running for help you tripped and broke your wrist but you got up and kept running until you got service to call for help. It wasn’t until Scott was here and hooked up to machines hours later that you mentioned your wrist.” She shook her head as she remembered him holding his bruised and cut up arm up and saying that he thought it looked a bit weird.

Stiles shrugged, his fingers brushing over said wrist like it was still swollen and tender. “My wrist wasn’t going to kill me,” he said, “his asthma was.” His tone was quiet and suddenly sad and Melissa didn’t know what was going on between the two of them, she just knew it was bad for them to be this torn apart despite everything that was going on.

“You know,” she said softly, “Scott is my first son and nothing can change that, but somewhere along the way, when he was about six, I got another one. He came running into my home and wormed his way into my heart talking so fast about the latest bit of information he discovered _ .  _ We spent Christmas’ and Thanksgivings and birthdays all together as a little family. And at some point, this kid grew up into an intelligent, loyal and incredibly brave young man and he stopped being just my son’s best friend, he was my son too, and  _ nothing  _ is ever gonna change that.” 

Under her hands, she felt Stiles take a shaky breath before he rose up out of his chair and wrapped his arms around her. Melissa hugged him back just as tightly.

“It’s gonna be alright, kiddo,” she said. “You’ll see. Your dad’ll be awake in no time, bribing some nurse or deputy to bring him some curly fries.” 

“It’ll be a cheeseburger, actually.” 

Stiles shot backwards, out of her arms so fast that he nearly stumbled over the chair behind him. “Dad! How long have you been awake?” He all but threw himself at his dad and Melissa watched as Noah bit back a pained noise as Stiles hugged him, but he did nothing to stop his son.

“Long enough,” Noah said, his eyes meeting Melissa’s over his shoulder. He smiled at her warmly, silently assuring her that he’d heard at least the end of their conversation. She smiled back with ease, just grateful that she hadn’t had to hold Stiles through the loss of another parent. “Now, what was that about curly fries?” 

Stiles sat up sharply. “Dad, no! You’ve just had two surgeries.  _ Two.  _ They pulled a foreign object out of your chest that was poisoning you. And do you know what that object was? A piece somebody else's bone which is horrifically disgusting.” Stiles’ mouth was moving too fast to hide his anxiety but nobody commented and for once they humoured him as he rambled on about how nobody was eating anything potentially fatty or sugary for the foreseeable future.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are always appreciated ♥


End file.
